Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Knowledge and comfort are mutually exclusive … unless you can find a balance

I am suffering from a lack of stimuli. I am a complex computing organism and am having issues with my physical ability leaving me stranded, void of proper intellectual and physical playgrounds. Normally, these gambits in normal everyday life keep my brain active and processor busy. Without these everyday challenges I am left to work with the most basic constructs of life. This, of course, is treading water which will do little to advance your pursuits. Pursuits are what keep me interested, like little video games, only real. Every little win, adds to my happiness; losses of course, subtract, but that is why we constantly pursue improvement. Without this need for improvement, we have no reason to do anything but waste away. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but in my experience it is an unhappy experience. So I consciously give myself tasks to keep my brain from pondering the backdrop, which leaves the “logical progression”.

This LP is the main concept that the Holy Bible warns us against. (Disclaimer: Whether the Book is the word of God or the cleverly disguised collective knowledge of mankind, its philosophy is undeniable) The story of the Fruit of Knowledge says to stay away from it. Jesus said, “Let tomorrow take care of itself, worry about today”. Solomon writes his own blog, known as ‘Ecclesiastics’. Read it if you want to have some serious head tripping contradictions. “All is vexing.” Genius.

I say, yes, let tomorrow take care of itself, it was going to anyway. However, keep yourself on track with a healthy balance of homework and chocolate. Homework representing all that is preparatory and chocolate representing all that is indulgence. Freud referred to this particular concept as the ‘ID’ and the ‘Super-ego’. I think he went further into it, but basically, take care of your affairs and as Sublime said, “first take care of head”. This is what it is all about, the balance. You cannot afford just one. All chocolate will do is leave you fat and lazy, but all homework will leave you feeling either robotic or melancholy.

In order to do your homework, it requires you thinking about tomorrow. I say, it is important to keep that in moderation or it will make you unhappy. As an example, I have recently had a lot of free time on my hands. As a bit of a techie, I have found that the inevitable conclusion to Moore’s Law that the computer chip will double in processing speed for the same cost every two years, means that inexorably computers will surpass the human brain in authority. NO ONE is governing this. To me, it is like watching Hitler, spreading his army and no one seeming to care. Whether it is mankind that will fall victim to machines’ independence (i.e. Matrix Trilogy) or we will just be slaves to their convenience, such as in the Pixar film, Wall-E. Either way, one fatal error … all of humanity will fall victim to it.

Trying to warn people of a distant catastrophe is like preaching Revelations. Everyone ignores you as an extremist recluse, even though you are trying to save them. As a person of both intelligence (at the risk of sounding pretentious) and a humanitarian, it is in my nature to want to take things into my own hands. “Evil occurs when good men do nothing.” I consider it my responsibility as a good man, to help people whether they want the help or not. This means that I would have to manipulate people using tools they fear and respect, such as force. As I was formulating this concept, I started wondering why no other intellectuals had taken a stand against the inevitable progression of mankind’s dependence on machine and technology and tried to correct it with something people would respond to. And then it hit me. I finally had something in common with “The Unabomber”, Ted Kaczynski. He used violence to try and demonize technology.

This ideal is the natural logical progression to try and save humanity. He was a computer genius who lacked chocolate. Ultimately, people with love in their lives tend not to go to extreme measures that those without love reach. Kaczynski must have had very little love in his life, or far too great a sense of responsibility.

Yes, mankind will be destroyed someday. But it is not my job to stop it. Kaczynski evidently felt it was up to him, because he saw people like me standing idly by and accepting the fact that the human race will eventually come to an end. We all have a choice … knowledge or comfort?